.thirty two.
Soon Deok sat on the grass with a sulk on her face, her knees bent at a ninety degree angle and her head in her hands. The pout on her lips was unmistakable and Minji watched her from about a foot away, her hands on her hips as she had watched the tenth prince storm off to some other part of the palace, after being disgusted with the fact that Soon Deok had snapped another living being's neck so easily, even if it was just a little bird. Normally, the now eighteen year old was accustomed to just seeing the food on his plate and not concerning itself with where it came from or the fact that it had been alive.
Trying to cheer her sister up, Minji walked up with a smile on her lips. "Why don't you start a fire and we cook this little bird for lunch?"
In many ways, Minji was more like an older sister to Soon Deok, even though it was actually the other way around. Since in the present she was twenty five, she really felt that way. She sometimes even thought it strange that she was so attracted to Jung when he was only fifteen, going to be sixteen soon. But in this life she was fifteen as well and that made her a bit less hesitant about their relationship. Perhaps if she were to return to her present life and find him in the future, he might be about her age.
Her words seemed to snap Soon Deok out of her melancholy thoughts for a moment and she nodded her head, getting back on her feet and searching through the clearing for the things she needed to start cooking their lunch.
The two girls then sat together and waited for the bird to be ready when their father arrived. He had been in the palace at a meeting with the king, and had been told by one of the other soldiers that his daughters were visiting. The smile that had plastered onto his face when he saw him was wiped off when he saw his daughter Soon Deok pouting whilst a bird nearly burnt over the fire she had built. Minji, not knowing much about nature, or even cooking, was starting to think she should say something before the food could become inedible.
Sitting down on a rock nearby where the girls sat, he asked his daughter, "Did you give the tenth prince that present you were really excited about?" Saying with hints of disdain, he added, "He probably didn't even appreciate it as much as he should have. A genuine bear rug. You've never gifted me something like that."
"He did like it." Soon Deok informing him, jutting out her bottom lip as she once again remembered yet another rejection from the tenth prince.
"Then why are you so upset?" Their father asked.
When Soon Deok took long to speak, Minji was the one who spoke for her. "We were catching birds with the tenth prince and he flipped out when unnie snapped its neck."
Her father raised an eyebrow at her. "Flipped out?"
"Well...he thought it was weird that she killed the bird like that." Minji repeated in words they could understand better.
"That's why I told her to marry the thirteenth or fourteenth prince. They aren't overly sensitive like he is." General Park pointed out. Minji remembered that conversation they had one morning at breakfast when she had just arrived in Goryeo. It had been several months prior, when he informed his daughter that she would have to choose a husband soon, as her eighteenth birthday was coming in that upcoming year. Her choices, which he had laid out for her, were the two youngest princes of Goryeo.
Soon Deok gave a shake of her head at the thought. Her mind still hadn't changed when it came to choosing a husband. She already knew exactly who she wanted. The only problem was that he did not want her. "I don't want to marry Baek-ah, and Jung's already getting married to Hak Soon. The one I want to marry is Prince Eun."
"What about Prince Han?" Minji suggested, one other person coming to mind. Eun had mentioned to her that he wasn't interested in Soon Deok, but also his other reason for not choosing her was because he suspected that Han was in love with her. From what Minji had observed, she thought the very same. Ever since he had returned to Goryeo, he spent most of his free time at her house visiting Soon Deok, and it seemed like he wasn't returning to the battle fields any time soon.
